No Place Like It
by xCrimsonxBlackxBloodx
Summary: Bits, drabbles, and scenes featuring Resembool and its famous trio. Chapter twelve: Unexpected Guests. "Who was it?" Winry asked. Edward sighed and ran a hand through his bangs. "Just a couple of beggars."
1. The Many Benefits of Automail

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belong to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.  
**

* * *

 **The Many Benefits of Automail**

 **Rating:** K

 **Summary:** As much as he wanted his real limbs back, Edward couldn't deny that being an alchemist with automail had its perks.

 **Warnings:** None

 **Author's Note:** Diverges at chapter 108.

* * *

At seventeen, Edward knew perfectly well how to do a number of things involved in everyday house work. He knew, for example, how to repair leaky sinks both with and without the help of alchemy, how to clean toilets and bathtubs, and how to cook. His aptitudes for the above mentioned tasks were debatable, but he was at least able to survive on his own.

Not that this was truly a necessity. Between Granny, Winry, and his brother, he would have been more than able to make do without knowledge of these skills, though his head may have been dented in a few places for his lack of "helping out around the house."

As a matter of a fact, even with these skills on hand, this was an argument that sprang up occasionally between himself and Alphonse or, more commonly, between himself and his childhood friend.

However, how this amounted in him making that night's dinner, he could not quite recall. The salad was easy to make,even if he _did_ forget where the large knives were kept. But he wasn't considered a genius for nothing, he thought with a smirk; he clapped his hands together and transmuted his automail prosthetic into a chopping knife —though he made sure to look around before he did so, and to clean it carefully afterwards.

He did all of this while the Sheppard's pie, stuffed with ground beef and studded with carrots and corn he had brought in from the vegetable garden, finished browning in the oven. He tested the pie with a fork to make sure that it was properly baked, and being unable to figure where the oven mitts were, he just shrugged and reached in with his right hand.

A shrill voice nearly made him drop the dish all over the floor as it rang out.

" _HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO STICK YOUR HAND IN THE OVEN!_ "  
 _  
_

* * *

 **Ending Note:** It's been a while since I've borrowed Arakawa-san's toys, so let me know if you guys feel like the characters ever feel "off" in any way. Beyond that, I'd also be happy to receive any sentences, ideas, themes, or other prompts that any of you lovely people might feel like throwing into a review. Consider it equivalent exchange—you get a shout out, and my muses get food!

xCxBxBx


	2. Fade

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.  
**

* * *

 **Fade**

 **Rating:** K

 **Summary:** Post-series. Edward may have gotten through all those battles, but he certainly hadn't left them unscathed. EdWin

 **Warning:** Spoilers.

 **Prompt:** A DeviantArt sketch that I came across, drawn by zulenha and titled "FMA: Morning."

* * *

The sun had barely risen when Edward opened his eyes; the faint sunlight filtered through their gauzy curtain. Winry wasn't sleeping—he could tell from her breathing and the not-quite-relaxed line of her shoulders—but he said nothing. After all, Granny and Al and Den would all wake up soon enough, and the day would start. If these five minutes were all that they could truly have together, then they would do.

Gingerly, one of her hands snaked across his abdomen, the ghostlike touch tickling across his sensitive scars, and he inhaled sharply.

His game was up. "That tickles, you know," he told her, voice low and rough from sleep.

She said nothing, simply ran a few gentle fingers along a pale scar that cut across his abdomen. His muscles jumped again, and he squirmed. "Cut that out, will you?"

Her hand stilled, but still, she was silent.

His eyebrows tightened as he peered down onto the top of her head. What the hell was churning in that brain of hers? He couldn't recall a single morning when she'd been as… pensive… as this.

He opened his mouth, ready with some light comment to prompt her into sharing her thoughts, when she finally spoke.

"How'd you get this scar?" She traced it again.

They'd never really spoken about all the fights he'd gotten into those few years ago, but of course she'd want to know eventually. "Do you remember when Al and I went south to talk to our teacher? Right after you came to Central."

"Sure." Her head, pillowed against his chest, shifted and her hair tickled his chin. "You went right back to Rush Valley afterwards with your arm all busted up."

He cleared his throat. "Al… got kidnapped while we were there," he muttered, and pretended that he couldn't feel her tense against him, "and, well, I got a little pissed off. The person who had him was an old incarnation of Greed and he had the same ability that Ling had, but I was too damned mad about Al to think about how to beat him, so… He ended up catching me across the stomach at one point before I could get away from him."

Her arm wrapped around his torso and tightened, and her forehead pressed against his ribs. "But you got away eventually. _Both_ of you did."

"Yeah, we did." He brought his own arm around her, pulled her closer to him, and let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

Pale sunlight, once lighting the walls opposite them, was creeping towards the floor. They'd have to get up soon, but her fingers were ghosting towards his ribs. They met an ugly, puckering knot of scars that he knew all too well. "What about this one?"

He stiffened, felt his stomach curl, tried to focus on her gentle fingers instead of the trace of a memory—the fear and shock and _oh holy fuck look at all the blood_ —that was curling into his brain.

"Ed?"

She was watching him now, through wide and worried blue eyes. She couldn't cry, though, because he had promised her that she would only cry tears of happiness and dying on her would ruin that—

"It's nothing," he gasped out, pushing the thoughts back into the dark part of his mind where they belonged. "I'm fine now, so it's nothing."

"Okay…" She turned her head away, but not so quickly that he couldn't see the way her eyes tightened. She held him for just a moment, then pushed herself away from the warm nest they'd created. "Granny and I have a lot to work on today," she added, voice quiet, "so I suppose I should get breakfast started…"

"Wait." His caught her hand in his own and pulled her back, curling around her and burying his face into her hip as she perched on the edge of the bed. It was still there, that hazy memory the pain and shock and beaten-down panic that had infiltrated his brain and, beneath, the knowledge that he'd made a promise. There were people still waiting for him—she was waiting for him—and he absolutely _could not_ fail them.

"I'll tell you everything, Winry, that's a promise. I just… can't do it now." He whispered, voice muffled by the soft fabric of her shirt. And he felt her hand, warm and rough and littered with thin, pale lines, come to rest on the scars that ringed his right shoulder.

"Okay," her voice was nearly as soft as his, but he could hear her smile. "I'll hold you to that, then."


	3. Trouble

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.**

* * *

 **Trouble**

 **Rating:** K

 **Summary:** Pre-series. Milk, Alphonse proclaimed all too happily, was gross.

 **Warnings:** None

 **Prompts:** None

* * *

"Boys!" Trisha's voice curled through the rooms and halls of the Elric family home, echoing off the ceiling of the kitchen and filtering into the study where she knew her two sons were hiding. "You can stop cleaning your room now. Dinner's ready!"

After a moment, the floorboards above her head squeaked just slightly—they figured they were being so sneaky, she thought with a grin, fooling their mother into thinking that they _hadn't_ been rooting through their father's book-laden study. She really shouldn't encourage them, but it was just so much easier to leave them to their own devices on blustery, rainy fall days like this one.

"Comin'!" Two suspiciously loud sets of feet thumped down the hallway on the second floor and trundled down the stairs. When the two little boys presented themselves to her, Alphonse wouldn't quite meet her eyes and Edward's grin told her that "cleaning their room" had been far more fun than it should have been.

She just shook her head and said nothing of the matter while she passed down plates and glasses for Edward to place on the table. Alphonse made his way into the ice box and, face screwed in concentration, retrieved a full bottle of creamy white milk. A Sheppard's Pie was pulled from the oven and cut into three portions, and the three glasses Edward had set out were filled.

"Thanks, Mommy!" Alphonse said happily.

"You're very welcome, Alphonse," she told him—and proceeded watch her youngest devour his food with a gusto that she had never expected of him.

"Did cleaning your room make you this hungry?"

Alphonse simply shook his head and continued to wolf down his food.

She tried again. "Honestly, Alphonse, what's gotten into you?"

He blinked up at her, fork in his mouth, but it was Edward who answered. His voice was muffled by a heaping mouthful of potato and beef. "Sheppard's Pie's great! 'Salmost as good as stew."

Alphonse nodded, a little too quickly.

"I've very glad that you two enjoy it so much," she told them with a sigh, "but that's no reason to forget how to use your manners. And Edward," she added, "please drink your milk."

Her eldest said nothing.

"Edward …"

He swallowed his mouthful, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared at the offending item. "I hate milk. It's gross."

"But I need you to set a good example for your little brother, remember?" She said with a too-patient smile. Would there ever be a day when she _didn't_ have to have this argument?

Edward huffed, his long bangs fluttering around his face, and he turned his glare on Alphonse. "Al," he snapped, "drink your milk!"

But Alphonse just met that glare with a bright smile. "No!" He chirped out. "I'm like you, brother! I hate milk! It's gross." Then he crossed his arms, imitating his sibling, and met Edward's eyes quite happily.

She covered her face with a hand and exhaled deeply. She could only hope that her youngest son's faze passed quickly—dealing with one boy's stubborn refusal when it came to milk was already too much trouble.


	4. Full Circle

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.  
**

* * *

 **Full Circle**

 **Rating:** K

 **Summary:** Post-series. Years would pass and some things might change, but others would always remain the same.

 **Warnings:** None

 **Promp** t: None

* * *

The days became week, which, in turn, slowly lengthened into months.

It was sometime during these weeks that Edward mentioned the need for himself and his brother to stop depending on the two Rockbells and find somewhere for themselves to live, but Granny quickly shot him down. After all, she said, the military would be contacting the Rockbell residence when his resignation was finalized; it made no sense for the brothers to leave before that time.

Winry knew that her temperamental friend would have fought his point harder if he had not been constantly distracted by his little brother's slow return to health. In the end, it had been Alphonse who simply thanked the two women for allowing them to stay in their house for so long, and that was the end of the matter.

Gradually, the two Elrics incorporated themselves into daily life at a residence that sold automail, and to country life that all in Resembool followed. Edward, primarily, would help with chores and general tasks; when he was able to, Alphonse would help out the villagers with construction and repairs by use of alchemy. In return, the villagers offered home-spun yarn or freshly-picked produce. They could go for weeks at a time without having to actually buy any groceries from their neighbours.

Alphonse grew strong and even grew angry from time to time; Edward's own temper began to dull. Both, though, were extremely helpful to have in the house, no matter how they may have changed.

Smiling slightly, she peered over at the two blond brothers, sitting across from herself and Granny at the dinner table. Both were so absorbed in the alchemy books that they had brought with them that she doubted they even realized what they were eating. Alphonse's glass of milk was resting empty by his free hand, though his brother's was —of course—untouched. Even as she watched though, the younger Elric absently grabbed the second glass of milk and gulped it down.

Her grinned broadened, and in her mind, she could hear Auntie Trisha's voice, admonishing the two brothers for bringing books to the table (again), and scolding Alphonse for drinking his brother's milk (again).

Years would go by and some things would inevitably change, but others would always remain the same.


	5. Between the Lines

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.**

* * *

 **Between the Lines**

 **Rating:** K+

 **Summary:** Post-series. "Why are you even looking into this?" Edward asked, eyeing the complicated equations and sketches of pentagram transmutation circles. "I told you I'm fine with things the way they are."

 **Warnings:** Major spoilers up to chapter 108.

 **Prompts:** None

 **Author's Note:** I told myself I'd let this sit before I posted this, but the very thought of this makes me so incredibly excited and annoyed at the same time because it both seems so very plausible (to me, at least) and how did the Elric brothers not think of this!

Anyway, as a result, this has barely even been edited. I apologize in advance for any possible typos.

* * *

Slate grey clouds, the first indication of what Edward knew would be a lively late spring storm, were collecting over the shingled roof of the Rockbell home as Granny slammed the front door shut behind her. With a sigh, he dog-eared a page of the book he'd been reading and moved to relieve the old woman of the box she was carrying. From the way its contents shifted and clattered, he had no doubt that it was full of bolts.

"The Stationmaster had a telegraph for you," she told him as he set the box down on a work table. "It looks like it's from Al."

 _That_ certainly wasn't expected—telegraphs from Xing cost a fortune. "Well," he grumbled, "I hope he made that idiot Emperor pay to send it."

"Just don't start screaming when you see what your brother thinks is important enough to send a telegraph about." Granny cackled as she pulled a creased paper from her pocket.

He accepted it with a grunt of thanks, eyes making quick work of the short note:

 _—Found strays. Litter mates. One has missing tail. Taught to share food. Won't leave me. Will be home soon._

He blinked, stared, and read it again. The heat from crossing the desert must've gotten to Al—that was the only explanation, because there was no way in hell that they could pull off what his little brother was suggesting.

Was there?

Deaf to Granny's insistence that she didn't want any tailless stray cats taking over her house, he raced up the well-worn wooden stairs. The house echoed as he slammed the door of the bedroom-turned-study shut behind him.

* * *

The two weeks between the telegraph and his little brother's arrival passed far too slowly. No matter where he looked or how long he studied, Edward couldn't find anything that gave him a lead on Al's theories, and the lack of information grated at his nerves until he damn well near gave up on searching entirely. As it was, all three of the people living in the Rockbell home let out a sigh of relief when Den's excited barking cut through the air and Alphonse stepped into the house with a happy "Brother! Winry! Granny! I'm back!" and an excited grin on his face.

"Good," Winry told him decisively at him by way of greeting, "because your brother's been acting odd ever since he got your telegraph. I've never seen him so _upset_ about a couple of cats."

He stared at her for a moment. "Cats?"

"Yes, Al," she told him, eyes narrowed. "Cats. Did you seriously forget the telegraph you sent?"

A nervous chuckle bubbled up from between his lips. Oh. "Right. _Those_ cats. Brother didn't say anything…?"

"Your idiot brother has barely said anything since he got your stupid—" She began, but was cut off as a door on the second floor banged open suddenly. Hurried, mismatched steps heralded the arrival of the aforementioned idiot brother, and wide golden eyes simply stared for a moment before Edward opened his mouth.

"'Bout damn time you got back, Al," he groused, before striding forward and grabbing his little brother by the arm. Al, in turn, offered an apologetic smile to Winry before he allowed himself to be pulled to the study.

The room, Al decided, was far cleaner than he would have expected it to be—even the three bookshelves they kept stuffed with all manner of volumes on alchemy and alkahestry, of chemistry and geothermal energy. He frowned, but Edward's voice met his ears before he could contemplate this too much.

"Start explaining," Edward ordered as he perched himself against a clean desk. "What the hell kind of theory did you come up with that can restore my _Gate_?"

"I never said anything about restoring it, Brother," Al reminded him. "Did you pay attention at all when we made up that code?"

Golden eyes narrowed in his direction, and Edward crossed his arms. "Of course I did, or else I'd be wondering why you bothered spending so much money on a telegraph about cats."

With a sigh, Al pulled his notebook from a pocket and tossed them across the room. Edward caught it with a deft hand. "I think that you can access my Gate, and use it like you would use your own. I said that we could _share_ it."

"That…" Edward was only half-listening now, eyes scanning the neat penmanship, brows knit and a hand on his chin as he contemplated the notes and sigils copied meticulously from mouldy tombs, dissected his brother's line of reasoning as arrows connected one circle to another reference. "That's … Why are you even looking into this? I told you I'm fine with things the way they are, Al."

"But just think about it!" The passionate researcher and concerned brother in Alphonse melded seamlessly as he pushed off the chair and rounded on his older sibling. "You postulated that our souls crossed when we tried to bring mom back, and you kept my body alive by eating and sleeping for me. This means we were connected—and the connection was stable—for _years_. Plus, you found proof of this when you saw both of our Gates while trying to get out of Gluttoney's stomach, which means both our alchemy and our bodies were connected.

"There's absolutely nothing to suggest that we aren't still connected somehow—or that you can't still get to my Gate somehow. It's said that alchemists need to access their own Gate in order to transmute, but what if that's not true? What if that's just what's said because no one else has had access to multiple Gates before, so people assume that it has to be your own?"

"I don't like the idea of messing around with that Truth bastard again…" Edward muttered, gaze fixed on the notebook clutched in his hand but no longer scanning the pages.

"If I'm right, Brother, we won't have to."

A moment of silence, so heavy that Al could almost feel the weight of it pressing down on his shoulders, ended with a dull snap. Edward threw the closed notebook back to his younger sibling, the fire in his eyes and the bold, brazen grin on his face so incredibly emblematic of the former Fullmetal Alchemist that Al could remember groaning when he used to see them.

Instead, he met that fierce gaze with his own. The grin came when his brother finally voiced his decision.

"Well, what are we waiting for, Al? We've got work to do."


	6. Break

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.  
**

* * *

 **Break**

 **Rating:** K+

 **Summary:** Post-series. It's not often that the brothers get into a shouting match. Fortunately, Winry's there to break things up.

 **Warnings:** Spoilers up to chapter 108. Also, Edward's mouth.

 **Prompts:** None

 **Author's Notes:** Companion to "Between the Lines." If you haven't already, you'll probably want to read that one first.

* * *

Muttered voices, one meant to be patient and the other snapping and terse, woke Winry before the sun rose, and she groaned as she listened to the muffled tones filter through the wall that her bedroom shared with the room the Elric brothers had somehow turned into a study. It'd been over a month since Alphonse had mysteriously cut his trip to Xing short and had showed up at the Rockbell home with an excited grin and a few cheerful words of greeting, but she'd barely seen either one of the brothers since then.

It had something to do with alchemy, she understood that much. She'd rounded on Edward two weeks ago as he'd tried to slink away from the dining table with his nose in a heavy tome, snatching the book from his hands and threatening to not give it back until he explained to her what was going on. A shouting match that left Den cowering behind Alphonse's leg had ensued before he'd finally yelled out something about Gates and human transmutation. Then he'd yanked the book out of her arms and stormed back into the study.

They hadn't spoken since.

With a sigh—she certainly wouldn't get back to sleep now, with the brothers bickering and all—she eased herself out of her warm nest of blankets and padded out into the hallway. There, she found out why they seemed so loud; one of them had forgotten to close the door whenever they had returned from… something.

Curiosity pulled her forward, guided her feet down the chilly wooden floors and encouraged her to peek into the room. Towers of mouldy tomes and worn volumes crowded nearly every available surface. Wooden crates filled with yellowing, curling research articles and folded up sketches of transmutation circles were stacked around the room's periphery, on a unkempt bed that she knew belonged to Alphonse, and in the footwell of a desk that was currently holding a veritable mountain of crumpled up sheets.

In the centre of the room, around the chalk edges of a transmutation circle so complicated that it hurt her eyes to look at for too long, the brothers' argument was intensifying.

"It's just not going to work!" Edward snapped, eyes flashing dangerously as he gesticulated wildly at the outline. "There's something wrong with the array, or our theories were wrong, or—or it's just not possible. So will you just shut the hell up and stop telling me to try again?"

Alphonse sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. Unlike his brother, he was determinedly calm when he spoke. "We've gone over the array and theories more times than I can count, Brother, and there's nothing wrong with them. Maybe it's like the Dragon's Pulse, where you have to find the flows and channel the energy along—"

"I don't want to hear one more fucking thing about the Dragon's Pulse!" A leather-bound book, cover cracked and faded with age, flew across the room and hit a messy bookshelf with a thud. Winry was sure that Edward would have shouted the words instead of snarling them if it hadn't been so early in the morning.

"Damnit! I was using that!" Glaring, Alphonse climbed to his feet to collect the fallen book.

"This whole thing is useless. What the fuck do you even need—"

"Just shut up, Ed." Al growled, fingers tightening around the spine of the book. Briefly, Winry wondered if he was going to throw it at his older sibling.

With a sigh and a mental note to never leave a wrench behind when Elrics were involved, she nudged the door open with a bare foot just in time to cut off Ed's creatively offensive retort. "Can't you both just shut up?" She demanded, arms crossed and eyes narrowed. "Some of us actually want to sleep, and it's kind of hard to do that with the two of you arguing!"

Two sets of golden eyes blinked at her in surprise, then Edward dropped his eyes, a faint blush dusting his cheeks. Alphonse offered her a sheepish smile. "Sorry, Winry," he muttered. "We didn't mean to be so loud."

"Well you were," she told him flatly. Then her shoulders sagged, and she added "you two haven't stopped going over this since you got back from Xing. Why don't you to just take a break from it for a little while?"

"I…" Alphonse glanced at his brother, whose eyes were studiously fixed on a chalk sigil by his right knee. "Sure. That sounds like a good idea." He dropped the leather book in his hands and moved towards the door.

"What about you, Ed?" She asked. Her voice was probably a bit harsher than it should have been, but he had been the one to wake her up, after all. "Are you coming or not?"

"… Yeah, sure." With a sigh, Edward picked himself up off the floor. His eyes finally met hers then, and he offered her a rueful smile. "Sorry we woke you up." He mubled, looking so very contrite that she couldn't help but stare for a moment.

"If you're so sorry, then you can help me get breakfast started," she finally said as he passed her.

He grumbled something under his breath as a reply, but didn't pull away when she slid her hand into his.


	7. Perfect

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.  
**

* * *

 **Perfect**

 **Rating:** K

 **Summary:** Post-series. After two months, the brothers still hadn't finished research, and Winry's patience was wearing through. EdWin.

 **Warnings:** None

 **Prompts:** None

 **Author's Notes:** Companion to "Between the Lines" and "Break." If you haven't already, you'll probably want to read those two first.

* * *

There. _Perfect_.

Winry nodded to herself as she finished drilling a screw hole into the shin piece she was working on for Mr. Carpenter. The upgrades to the man's leg weren't due for another week, but she knew that he would appreciate being able to move easier before the harvest started. Besides, it kept her mind off other things. Things that she told herself she wouldn't dwell on right now.

Yesterday had marked two months since Alphonse stepped through the front doorway, having cut his trip to Xing short due to some alchemical finding that they still hadn't really shared with her. They were making progress, they both assured her at the rare dinner when they didn't both have their heads buried in books and notes. It would be just a matter of time, they promised during the single time that they'd decided on their own accord to take a break—perhaps they'd been fighting again? It was hard to tell when the machine were running—and help her and Granny in the garden.

With a sigh—she would just let the brothers do what they always did, she reminded herself, and come back to her when they were done—she killed the power to the drill and pulled her worn-worn scarf from her head. Speaking of breaks, she decided, it was time that she take one of her own. Maybe she'd see if Nellie wanted to meet at the café.

But three sharp raps against the door behind her sounded before she could act on her decision. She spun, and found Edward leaning against the doorframe, one hand stuffed into the pocket of his trousers and the other still raised to the door. He wasn't quite looking at her, but she could still see the light dusting of pink that coloured his cheeks whenever he decided that he was going to do something nice for her.

"You looked pretty busy earlier," he muttered, and that one hand moved to rub at the back of his neck, "so I didn't want to bother you."

The unspoken question was there, and she smiled brightly. "I was just about to get some food." A lie, sure, but Ed _always_ wanted food. "Did you want to join me for lunch?"

He just cleared his throat and shook his head. "I told Al that I'd finish helping him clean up. I just—I know that we haven't really been fair to you for the past while and, well… here."

He pulled his fist from where it was hidden in his pocket. Resting in his palm was a set of plain earrings, not unlike the ones that currently adorned her ears, gleaming dully in the light. She accepted them with a smile, turning them over in her fingers and looking at them closely. They were not made from silver, she noticed, but from the finest combination of high-carbon automail alloys. The tiny imperfections in the metal could only have been caused by alchemy.

But Edward was talking again, so she pulled her attention away from the tiny hoops resting in her hand and focused instead on his mumbled words. "It's been a while since I got you something and I know it's hard for you to get new earrings and stuff, so I made these. But just don't start poking more holes in your ears, okay? I swear, if you do that, I'm not gonna—"

"You made these?" She repeated, her mind gripping onto that single phrase. It hadn't been Al?

"I… Yeah." His cheeks brightened even more and both hands retreated into his pockets. But then his eyes flew upwards to meet hers, bright and fierce and burning. "But if you think that means that you can mutilate your ears again, I'll take them away and turn them back into screws, you hear—Oomph!"

The force of her hug pushed him back into the doorframe. She tightened her grip around his shoulder blades and buried her face into his chest, hoping that he wouldn't see the tears that were welling in her eyes.

"Thank you, Ed," she whispered. Her fist pressed the earrings into her palm until she was sure they would leave marks. "I love them. They're perfect."

* * *

 **Ending Author's Note** : Just a heads up, folks, that I'm going to be trying to spend more time on some other stories that I have up my sleeve, meaning that updates for this little collection will most likely start slowing down soon.

Also, I'm starting to run out of ideas, so … suggestions, anyone?


	8. Iron Wills Still Break

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.**

* * *

 **Iron Wills Still Break**

 **Rating:** K+

 **Summary:** AU. "Where is he, anyway?" Edward asked, glancing around as though his younger brother would somehow appear in the room. "He's okay, right?"

 **Warnings:** Spoilers up to chapter 84. Mentioned character death.

 **Prompts:** None

* * *

The house that Winry grew up in smelt faintly of dust and mildew—just how busy was Granny, now that she was apprenticing with Mr. Garfiel?—but it still held the smells and sounds that would always mean "home." The thought drew a comforting blanket over her mind as she made her way up the creaky wooden stairs to her bedroom, loosening the knots in her shoulders and easing the furrowing of her eyebrows. It'd been many years since she'd needed that familiar comfort just this much.

She eased open the door to her room, and little eddies of dust rose up from the ground, gold in the sliver of light creeping in from the hallway. A noise of disgust bubbled up between her lips. "Everything's covered in dust," she muttered to no one in particular, shucking off her worn, stained, and poorly fitting shirt, and briefly wondered if she'd ever be able to clean it properly to give it back to Rose. "I'll have to clean up tomorrow."

Her hands were gripping her sweat-stained undershirt when an odd noise, somewhere between a whimper and a strangled gasp, met her ears, sending electricity down her spine and causing her stomach to lurch. Once, her first reaction might have been to grip at her anger towards whomever had entered her room, but months of being on the run from crazy alchemists and almost anyone in a blue uniform had sharpened paranoia into a fine point. Trying to breathe around the tightness in her chest, trying to remember where her largest torque wrench was resting, she slowly turned to meet her assailant.

A set of eyes met her, shocked and staring, set in a pale face. Before she even noticed the dull gleam of scratched automail, she lunged towards her workstation—that damned torque wrench _had_ to be there, somewhere. A high shriek bounced off the walls, she hand closed around cold steel, and it took her a moment to realized it was coming from her.

There was a whirlwind of commotion after that. The two Briggs soldiers escorting her charged into her room, guns drawn and shouting questions, only to find themselves at gunpoint when to monstrously huge men barreled into her room just seconds later. Den, lips drawn and snarling viciously, attacked one of the mysterious men without hesitation. And somehow, Ling appeared, wanting to know what was going on as her pulled Den away by the scruff of her neck.

Lots of shouting met her ears, as well as demands for explanations and for guns to be lowered, and the distinct sound of chewing sounded from somewhere to her right. But her pounding heart slowed and the tightness around her lung loosened as her fear abated, making room for the grief and anger that bubbled underneath.

Den was still growling and barking, that obnoxious sound of chewing continued, and someone was demanding "that goddamn dog" be shut up. Her right hand itched to swing the heavy wrench that she gripped tightly. The chewing stopped. She snapped.

"Get the hell out of my room!" The wrench swung forward, connecting solidly with one of the mysterious men. He tumbled backwards. The Briggs men scrambled out after him. " _NOW!_ "

Breathing heavily, she turned to the only other person remaining in her room—the intruder who had started all of this. He stared, golden eyes wide, body tense and doubtlessly waiting for a vicious blow from the wrench she still gripped. She stared back for a moment, scrutinizing him for any new scars or bruises that he must have gotten in the many months since they'd parted ways, and then her shoulders sagged.

"I was so scared," she finally whispered. He was here, breathing, alive.

"Y-yeah," he muttered back, still tense, "I'm really sorry …"

The wrench fell from trembling fingers with a heavy clunk. She'd have to tell him, she knew. She'd known for months that it would have to be her, and she still didn't know how to break the news.

She wrapped her arms around herself, not daring to meet those fiery, expressive eyes as she spoke. "Ed, about Al—"

"Where is he, anyway?" Edward interjected, glancing around as though his younger brother would somehow appear in the room. "He's okay, right?"

She flinched at the question. His hands fisted, and his voice hardened. "Where'd he go, Winry?"

"We were heading to where Scar hid his brother's research notes," she told him through numb lips, "and Al… just collapsed. We carried him with us for weeks, but he never woke up—"

"So you just _left him_?" He was shaking. She could hear the plates around his shoulder clattering, could hear the servos in his hand straining as his right hand tightened with unhuman strength.

"Of course not!" Finally, she met his eyes with her own and blinked away tears. "Dr. Marcoh helped me separate his blood seal from the armour—"

"Where'd you leave him?" There was a frantic pitch to his voice now. He _had_ to know what this meant—"Is he here?"

"In the basement."

The words were barely out of her mouth before he pushed past her. His heavy, uneven steps rang out in the quick tempo as he barreled down two sets of stairs. Even from where she stood, she heard the basement door crack against the wall as he threw it open; heard Edward's increasingly desperate calls for Al to wake up and answer him, damnit, because this wasn't funny; heard the choked sobs that wracked his body.


	9. Picture of the Perfect Family

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.**

* * *

 **Picture of the Perfect Family**

 **Rating:** K+

 **Summary:** Pre-series. Ever since he was little, Edward could remember the names they whispered towards his and his brothers' backs. Bastards, freaks, whore's sons.

 **Warnings:** None

 **Prompts:** None

* * *

Ever since he was little, even before he could fully understand the issue at hand, Edward could remember the names they whispered towards his and his brothers' backs.

Bastards.

Freaks without a family.

Illegitimate.

Whore's sons.

As a young child, it never really occurred to him that his family might be different than the other families they lived around. He never really thought about the fact that his mommy and daddy didn't have the same last name—and that he carried his mother's surname instead of his father's—so he never really occurred to him that this might be something out of the ordinary. As it was, he never paid any attention to the whispers that followed his mother around the small town, never noticed the sneers or slight widening of newcomers' eyes when the woman with two young boys corrected them gently.

"Not Mrs. Elric," she would say with a laugh and a smile that didn't often reach her eyes. "Ms. Elric."

But the farmers that made their living selling produce and wool noticed, and always added a few cenz to their prices when they saw his mother near them during her regular shopping excursions. The few store owners noticed, and turns up their noses to her when she searched between their shelves for goods brought in from the big cities. The other children noticed, and they followed him around on his first day of school, taunting and teasing and laughing until angry tears filled his eyes and he fled from the strange hallways and classrooms.

His father had gathered him into his arms that evening, smiling that calm, soothing, comforting smile that he loved seeing so much, and sat both of them down before the cackling fireplace in the living room.

"Our family is a little bit different than those of your classmates," he had said,"but your mother and I love each other just like their parents do, and we all live happily together just like their families do, so does it really matter what they think?"

He had groused and protested, insisting that it did matter because it was mean and wrong, and weren't grownups supposed to know better?

Hohenheim had just sighed, run a hand over his golden hair, and gazed down at him with an expression his young mind couldn't understand. "Sometimes, grownups forget how to be, well, grown up. The best thing we can do to remind them is to ignore them until they remember."

But then Hohenheim left, just weeks later. Edward couldn't help but wonder if the man had ever loved their mother at all, if he had ever loved him, if anything he had ever said was true.

The next time one of his classmates taunted him in the school yard, he gave the boy a black eye.


	10. Samhain

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.**

* * *

 **Samhain**

 **Rating:** K+

 **Summary:** In which Winry's trusty screwdriver goes missing, Edward blames the souls of the death, and Alphonse just wants to celebrate Samhain.

 **Warnings:** None

 **Prompt:** Hallowe'en, of course!

* * *

Just a few more minutes on Mr Carpenter's new leg, Winry promised herself, and she would take a break. She'd been at this for hours, after all, and she really _had_ promised Granny that she'd start the bonfire. Edward certainly couldn't be trusted with it.

Eyes fixed on the half-built shin before her, she held an eight-sixteenths screw in place while her hand flailed about, searching for the right screwdriver. Her fingers touched only empty air, though, and her palm slapped against the well-used workbench.

"What the—?" She muttered to the empty room. She pushed a pair of thick goggles onto her forehead and searched the bench's messy surface, the footwell, and the cluttered drawers that held countless screws and drill bits. "Where'd you go, screwdriver?"

She pushed herself away from her workspace and expanded the search. It wasn't hiding in any of the crates that held spare metals, nor did it show up amongst the shelves that held all the wires and cables. With a groan and a string of curses, she picked herself up off the floor—it wasn't underneath the shelving units, either—and stomped out of the room. It just wasn't possible that she had misplaced her most-often used tool this badly, and that meant there was only one explanation.

The brothers were in the kitchen when she found them, seeding and chopping up pumpkins for pie while they argued about some centuries old tome they had somehow gotten their hands on.

"You can't deny, brother," Alphonse was saying, orange-tinted spoon in one hand, "that the _Mutus Liber_ played an important role in teaching the masses about alchemy—"

"It's a _picture book_ , Al," Edward interrupted flatly as he dropped a few pumpkin cubes into a pot. "How much do you really think they learned out of something that— _ow_! Dammit! What the hell, Winry!"

Winry's wrench had collided solidly with his head.

"Don't 'what the hell, Winry' me, Ed!" She snapped at him. Her fingers plunged back into a pocket for another weapon. "I've been looking for my screwdriver everywhere! Where the hell did you hide it!"

Golden eyes narrowed at her, and Edward shook his head at her like an angry dog. "I haven't done anything with your stupid tools! You just left it somewhere and forgot about it—or it's the souls of the dead coming back to teach you a lesson for throwing them at me."

A second, smaller wrench ricocheted off his skull. The howled curse sent a sick pleasure to her stomach. "Don't give me that crap about the souls of the dead! Just knock it off and tell me where you put my screwdriver!"

Furious, and furiously rubbing at his bruised cranium, Edward opened his mouth to retaliate.

Alphonse, though, cut across him with a sigh and a placating hand. "I know brother can be a jerk sometimes, Winry—"

"Hey!"

"—but he really is telling the truth this time. We've been working on making the filling for hours now, and he hasn't touched any of your tools."

Winry narrowed her eyes—was Alphonse covering for his idiot brother?—but the younger Elric kept going.

"You've been working on Mr. Carpenter's new leg for hours now, so why don't you just leave it for the rest of the day? Come help us with the pies, and once they're done we can all light the bonfire together and celebrate. Just like when we were kids."

She had to admit that he had a point; she'd been working on the limb since just after breakfast, and it _was_ a holiday, after all. But still, she'd really wanted to at least get the toes attached today… "So you two really have no idea where my screwdriver went."

Alphonse quickly shook his head; Edward rolled his eyes and muttered something about having better things to do than organize her tools for her.

"Fine," she snapped, a threatening finger pointed at the two, "but if I find out that you two're lying to me, I swear—"

A clacking of claws on tile cut her off. Den, tail cocked proudly and head held high, chose that moment to trot into the kitchen. With a happy sigh, she plopped herself down by Alphonse's feet. As the three stared, she dropped a well-chewed screwdriver so that it clattered loudly against the tiled floors and proceeded to happily chew on the handle until ropey strings of saliva coated her muzzle.

"… Oh."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Samhain, one of the annual celebrations that is thought have given rise to Hallowe'en, was thought to be a time when souls and fairies could more easily travel between the Otherworld and the world we live in. It's still celebrate to this day—from 31 October until 1 November in the northern hemisphere—with feasts, bonfires, feasts, and disguises.

Hopefully, I haven't bastardized the Wiccan religion too much by incorporating their holiday into this story (but so sorry if I have; I never meant to offend anyone).

 **AN2:** The _Mutus Liber_ isn't just a picture book; it's got plenty of text in it, which all talks about the Philosopher's Stone. Edward's exaggerating.


	11. The Plaque by the Train Station

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.**

* * *

 **The Plaque by the Train Station**

 **Rating:** T

 **Summary:** A tidy little plaque adorns Resembool's new train station, reading: This plaque stands in memory of Resembool's residents who lost their lives in the Ishvallan Razing, December 15, 1907.

 **Author's Note:** This one's for **Kas3y** , who's an absolutely superstar when it comes to reviewing stuff and who seems to enjoy fairly heavy subjects.

* * *

Near the entrance to the entrance of the new Resembool train station, on the right-hand side of the archways that admitted passengers and welcomed visitors, framed by a cedar plank painted white, was a plaque. It wasn't large—probably no more than a square foot in size—but, when the sun was just at the right angle in the sky, its tarnished brass surface would wink and shine at passers-by.

Though it wasn't particularly noticeable, Alphonse knew the words inscribed on the fine sheet of metal by heart. After all, in the weeks after it had been screwed onto the new train station, he had whispered the words and accompanying names to himself each night like a mantra—anything to keep the bloody, terrifying, horrifying nightmares out of his bed.

 _The Second Resembool Train Station_

 _Resembool's first train station was built in 1843 to connect the rapidly growing town to the rest of the country. However, the station, as well as the original post office, the town's only hotel, and several acres of farmland, were destroyed during the Ishvallan Razing of 1907._

 _Due to a need to connect the province of Ishval to the rest of Amestris, the second train station was constructed and damaged railroads were rebuilt in 1908._

 _This plaque stands in memory of Resembool's residents who lost their lives in the Ishvallan Razing, December 15, 1907._

Below, in neat little rows in perfect script, were the names and birthdays of the fifty-seven people who had been killed—shot down or cut down trying to defend their homes and families from the red-eyed monsters, or else brought to their graves from infections caused uncleaned wounds.

It all looked so neat, so polite, so… appropriately quaint. It wrapped up the whole incident—the screaming, the crying, the burning buildings, the blood, shrieking sheep and shaking ground and keep close to Uncle Rockbell and Ed and find _anywhere_ to hide or else they would die too—in a tidy little bow. It placed the whole ordeal nicely in a little box so that the whole thing could be added as a footnote in the history books that Central children used at school.

Alphonse frowned, glaring at the plaque for just a moment. If only it would tell the real story, about the weeks Uncle and Aunty Rockbell work themselves to exhaustion to try to keep people alive; the frantic villagers trying to keep themselves alive that winter, what with most of the herds having been slaughtered; the lost limbs, the cries, howls, and screams that would shake the windows of the Rockbell house for years afterwards, as friends and neighbours had steel plates and copper wiring grafted to their bodies.

"Hey, Al?" Al gave himself a mental shake and looked to his older brother. Two golden eyes were watching him for the train station's entrance, a pair of white ticket gripped tightly in one fist. "The train's going to be here any minute. You coming?"

"Sorry, brother," he said. "I was just thinking."

"Don't worry about it," Edward told him with a humourless smile and wave of an automail hand. But Alphonse caught just the barest of glances cast towards the simple, neat, tidy little plaque, and noticed the faint frown that pulled at the elder Elric's lips.

After all, they were brothers.

He simply nodded. Heavy feet carried him through the archways and into the station.


	12. Unexpected Guests

**Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist/Hagane no RenkinJutsushi belongs to Arakawa-san. I just borrow her characters from time to time.**

* * *

 **Unexpected Guests**

 **Rating:** K

 **Summary:** "Who was it?" Winry asked. Edward sighed and ran a hand through his bangs. "Just a couple of beggars."

* * *

With Granny off to the post office to pick up her order of nuts, bolts, and other various high-carbon automail pieces, and Alphonse off to help her carry the heavy boxes back to the house, it fell to Edward to help Winry in the kitchen.

Not that he really minded though, he thought to himself as he cut an apple into fine slices. They were quickly tossed into a metal bowl and he grabbed another apple, already peeled and cored, and sliced that one too. The smell of sugar and cinnamon drifted throughout the kitchen and, beside him, Winry hummed to herself while he added a bit of flour to the latest batch of dough.

After all, the wind-fall apples that the Carpenter's had dropped off for them needed to be used somehow, so they may as well bake them into pies.

Oh yes. Warm, crisp, mouth-watering pies.

A few quick, light raps echoed through the house and bounced off the kitchen's tile floor. Edward jumped from his food-induced reverie. Winry frowned, and tried to peek through the window above the sink without pausing in her work.

"We're not expecting any guests." She muttered, then her blue eyes landed on him. "Could you get the door, Ed?"

She had a streak of white flour decorating her forehead, and he bit his tongue to keep from sniggering. And she called _him_ messy. "Uh, yeah, sure."

Another pile of apple slices were unceremoniously dumped into the bowl and he wiped his juice-sweetened finger on his trousers as he wandered through the doorway and toward the front of the house. The knocks sounded again, a bit louder and more insistent this time.

"Yeah, yeah," he called out to their visitor as he reached the door and turned the lock. "Keep your pants on!"

The door swung open on well-oiled hinges, and for just a moment, Edward couldn't do anything more than stare at the two people standing on the front porch. Then, finally, his brain—and his mouth—caught up with what he was seeing. "What the—? Ling, Ran Fan, how the hell did you get here?"

For there was no denying the fact that the twelfth prince of Xing and his faithful companion were standing before his eyes and—at least is Ling's case—wearing the most eclectic and eye-searing combination of Eastern and Western styles Edward had ever seen. Why would _anyone_ think that a high-collared Tang suit would look good with a bright red tie?

"We came with one of the merchant caravans, of course," Ling told him. The huge grin plastered on his face was only slightly hidden by the top hat pulled across his forehead. "I'm going to be coronated soon, and I decided to make one last trip to see my friends before politics and imperial affairs got in the way. Don't you think it would be wonderful to reminisce about the good old times togeth—?"

The sharp sound of the door slamming shut echoed throughout the house. The secure click of the lock falling into place followed suit.

Winry blinked in surprise when he wandered by in the kitchen, running a hand through his bangs and letting loose a massive sigh. "Who was it?"

He picked up the knife and started slicing apples again. "A couple of beggars," he muttered, and didn't say anything more.


End file.
